


A meeting of minds

by caulkhead



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, 琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV)
Genre: Gen, L-space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27031066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caulkhead/pseuds/caulkhead
Summary: Lin Chen adds two and two and makes five (or, what's large, furry and hangs out in the archives?)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	A meeting of minds

Langya Hall does not leap to conclusions. It considers. It weighs evidence. It draws inferences. Its conclusions, when they come, are inevitably and impeccably correct.

All this notwithstanding, Lin Chen was beginning to think he might have made a mistake.  
…

The Librarian knew, with the deeper-than-bone instinct of the jungle he had not, in fact, grown up in, that something had been following him for days. It made all his fur stand up on end and his teeth itch. It was therefore not entirely a surprise to round a corner to find a figure lounging placidly against the shelves, apparently waiting for him.

He knew at once that this was not, despite appearances, one of Unseen University's wizards 1. The robes were right, the scowl was right, and the indescribably irritating air of knowing it all was undoubtedly right. The hair, though, was rather better than usual, and he smelled wrong. He moved wrong, too, more like an assassin than a wizard, a species not noted for their grace. Most crucially of all, the beard and the hat were missing. 

The Librarian crouched, ready to spring, and displayed all his teeth.  
...

A wiser man would have run away at this point. A stupider one might have reached for his sword. But Lin Chen was dense in only a few, very specific ways (none of which he would have admitted to), and did neither of these. Instead, he closed the book he had been reading and inserted it carefully back into the gap from which he had taken it, automatically running his hand behind the books to align the spines. It was the instinctive action of one born to Langya Hall’s arcane and complex filing system, who would as soon burn a paper as put it down in the wrong place, and it instantly caught the Librarian’s attention. Certainly, it was more intelligent than the next thing he did, which was to say,

“So, when did the beetles get you?”

The Librarian blinked. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t this. Perhaps the man had been at the dried frog pills? The stranger extended a hand and proceeded to dig himself deeper.

“Don't be afraid; I already know,” Lin Chen said, consciously softening his voice, “You didn’t start out like this, did you? And now, perhaps…”

A life dedicated to the discipline of _wu-shu_ was enough, just barely, to let him leap back out of range. And again. And again.

“Alright, alright, I _get_ it,” Lin Chen managed, still springing backwards. “You’re happy the way you are. Can we stop this now? It’s getting boring. And you don’t really want to rip my throat out, you’d get blood on the books.”

“Oook.” The Librarian swung to a halt and sat back on his heels. This, he implied, was a truce, not a ceasefire. Project unscrew-the-annoying-wizard’s-head could be resumed at any moment.

“I really _do_ want to know what happened, though. And when. Call it… research. How long have you been a yeti?”

This, at least, was a new one. The fur which had stood on end all over the Librarian’s body settled down again. He reached a hand out to the shelves without looking, opened the resulting _Eye-Spye Booke of Primates_ 2 to the relevant page and held it out so the stranger could read it.

“...Orang-utan,” Chen corrected himself. “My mistake, and I don’t say that very often. How long have you been an orang-utan, and how did it happen?”

The Librarian rolled his eyes. Surely everybody knew what had happened by now? Everybody from his world, at least. In L-space, you could never rule out the possibility that the person you were talking to was _not_ from your world. A few economical gestures and it became clear that wherever the stranger was from, some things were much the same.

“Stabbed in the back… no… political infighting… no, bigger, a war? A _magic _war? Yes. And… an explosion. Collateral damage? Yes. Yes. I see. No beetles at all? 3 Oh. Damn.”__

__“Why do I want to know? I have a friend. Hangs out in the archives. Can’t keep him out of them, in fact. No - not these archives. I don’t think he’s found his way in here yet.” (Probably, Chen added internally). “Large, hairy, doesn’t talk much. So when I saw you, I thought... Well. He didn’t always look this way either, but he wants to change things back. He wants _me_ to change him back. And I don’t want to do it.”_ _

__

__

__An orang-utan has a lot of forehead, and the librarian’s eyebrows had been creeping steadily up it. They were nearly at his hairline by now. “Oook?”_ _

__“Oh, I _can_ do it. I’m the best there is. But it’s going to cost him more than he can possibly afford, and I can’t spare him any of it, not a single second, or give him back a single minute of what he’ll lose.” He slumped against the nearest bookshelf and slid down it, ending up hunched miserably on the floor. “And I’m still going to have to do it, because I’m his friend.”_ _

__This kind of moral dilemma, the Librarian was pretty sure, was one of the reasons he appreciated not being human in the first place, to say nothing of the endless dramatics. He patted the stranger kindly on the shoulder, and was surprised when a hand shot out and took him gently but firmly by the wrist, as if feeling for a pulse. “Well,” the stranger said, after a few rather awkward seconds, “whatever you are, you’re a very healthy specimen of it. I’d say that wizard did you a favour.”_ _

__“Oook.”_ _

__“Oh, yes. My apologies.” Lin Chen let the wrist go and rose to his feet again. “As custodian of all this” - his wave took in the surrounding shelves, reaching to infinity “and as someone who’s at least equally furry, whether or not there were beetles involved - I was hoping you might have some advice. I'll pay, of course.”_ _

__“Oook.” The Librarian shrugged. It was a process that went on for some time._ _

__“He has the right to be who he wants to be?” Chen’s voice was bitter. “I can’t give him that. No-one can.” 4_ _

__“Oook.”_ _

__“Well, yes, I could give him a banana. He might even appreciate it. Err… My thanks.”_ _

__Orang-utans aren’t really built to bow. The Librarian gave a sort of general all-purpose nod in response to the stranger’s fluid gesture of respect, and stood watching as the figure strode off into the gloom. He wouldn’t get lost on the way out; this was clearly a man who was at home in the shadowy labyrinths of information. As for the shadows inside his own head, that was another matter entirely. It was this sort of thing that made you glad to be an orang-utan instead._ _

__…_ _

_Some time later_

__“Urrrrgh.”_ _

__“Don’t be like that. It’s a present. It’s not medicinal. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s good for you. Look, if you make that kind of face, I’ll eat it myself…”_ _

__“Urrrgh?”_ _

__“It’s from someone with a wiser head than you. Call it ... fellow-feeling.”  
…__

__  
_ _

_
  1. Keeping wizards out of L-space was something of a lost cause. The younger ones tended to have the curiosity of cats and the survival instincts of lemmings, though age, cunning and UU’s extraordinary cheeseboard tempered this in those who made it to the post-doctoral level. There were always a few rambling round the first level or two of the stacks. The Librarian wasn’t overly worried about them (i); the books could look after themselves, and did.  
(i) although he would shoo any that he found gently towards the exit. After all, they might have books on loan, and if they died in here, those books would remain, unreturned and _overdue_ , until such time as someone thought to turn out their rooms years later.
  2. Sufficiently senior members of the Librarians of SpaceTime can perform small summoning magics of this kind. Don’t try this at home, you never know what might turn up.
  3. What was this obsession with entomology? Perhaps the Librarian should just show the stranger to the appropriate section of shelving (595.7) and leave him to it?
  4. I MIGHT, said a voice somewhere at the back of Lin Chen’s skull. He ignored it. He wished Changsu would do the same. 
_ 


__

__

____


End file.
